Ships disappearing

[hatemf90]

Hi,

Ive started a new SH4 campaign with GFO + RSRDC + Real Environment.

The very first contact I had was a japanese column of battleships, to my surprise a few minutes in they disappear.. its not likely that I lost them, it was morning with clear weather and calm sea, and they were coming towards me not away, then after a while they completely vanish..

[CapnScurvy]

Not that I would know exactly what happened in your situation but, it's likely the BB column came upon its final waypoint and just became nonexistent. Lurker does a good job in providing as accurate an AI experience as anyone has every done with ship missions and patrols. He tries to put real life history into the game with the proper movements and dates. The issue is, the game expects these movements to either "end" at a specific place or "loop" back to a specific location to start over again. Since the latter isn't realistic, it's likely the movements of the column ended at a designated spot on the map. You just happened to have witnessed its existence coming to an end.

[hatemf90]

Strange, I thought it was a buggy install on my part. I followed the install order except I added the RSRDC v.5 patch then the GFO patch for RSRDC, could it cause something like that?

[hatemf90]

I guess no one has any idea why this is happening?

[Fish40]

I have to agree with CpnScurvy on this one. The Taskforce most likely reached a final waypoint. I've seen this myself with merchants nearing ports.

Originally Posted by hatemf90

I guess no one has any idea why this is happening?

they told you why.

the game randomly generates ship traffic and you never know for sure when they will reach the end and vanish. its very frustrating but it doesn't happen too often you just got "lucky" so to speak lol.

sometimes you do everything right and they go poof before you get to shoot them. I have had them do it when the torpedo was within so we know how you feel a few hundred yards of hitting them this is why I never chase or "stalk" contacts unless I can close and engage them in short order because I know they will vanish at some point if I wait too long so just like real skippers used to do you have to make a guestimate if its worth going after.


in most cases you never notice because they sail out of range and you never see then vanish but the game cant continue to render ships all the time so it compromises by doing it in stages and generating ships near you from point A to point B as the game believes that gives you the time needed to engage them or let them go. I don't believe there is any way to determine the chance when shipping will vanish but its rare to notice it.

[hatemf90]

Well what made me doubt that is it wasnt a random freighter somewhere. I got a report at the start of 'heavy units from cam ranh bay'. Im not near a port but I am near island of Formosa, maybe thats the end of their line.

Its disappointing though, my first opportunity ever to sink a battleship (in any SH game) and they disappear.. I dont remember this ever happening in SH3, you could follow ships as long as you wanted.